Boggarts and Bad Days
by dbquills
Summary: The Marauders and Lily are having a bad day. Sirius point of view. Rated T for one curse word.


Sirius POV:

It had been a long day. HA! That was an understatement it had been an excruciatingly long day. It started at breakfast with the prophet bringing news of dementor attacks, muggle-borns going missing or turning up dead, and the family of muggle-borns being tortured and murdered. Yeah, not the greatest way to start out breakfast, it was really bad for James and Lily, being heads together they had to deal with all the lovely purple letters that were flying to different students all over the Great Hall telling them that a member of their family was missing, or dead. Yes, not a good day at all. I am happy to say that Jamesie boy was holding out alright considering he could be next to get a letter seeing as his parents did not support the bastard behind all this and his parents were Aurors. Lily-Flower was having a harder time of it. Not that most could tell, but James has been in love with Lily since third year so has been observing her (he won't let me say stalking because that's what Snivellus does) since then. Lils and I have been best friends since sixth year, she found out about my horrendous family and I found out about her grotesque sister, we decided to adopt each other and have been ridiculously close ever since. So needless to say James and I could tell she was hurting bad, I mean she was a muggle-born to so all these attacks were really hitting home.

So after they eloquently (I know big word for Padfoot) dealt with the drama of the morning it was off to charms class, which happens to a highlight of the day because Lily is always glowingly happy in that class which makes Prongs (James sorry it felt weird to call him James for so long since I only ever call him Prongs) and me happy because she isn't trying to hide her pain she is just enjoying the day. So I was hoping the day was going to pick up… silly me.

Next we had potions which is alright because the four of us, Lily, Prongs, Moony (Remus) and myself, do pretty well in that class, Moony and Lily-Bean doing the best but still. Problem one is that Snivellus is in that class, see he and Lilykins used to be friends but then he called her a forbidden word and that was the end of that, but he always puts her on edge in class because he is the only one who is better than her at potions. Problem two whenever Lily-ba-nily does a fantastic job, which is always, Slughorn, has to bring up the fact that she is a muggle-born so it is surprising that she does so well. She always gets a little depressed at that point in the class so I cheer her up by trying to explode other people's cauldrons. She usually scolds me but I can tell she thinks it's funny.

Last class of the day for the Marauders and Tiger Lily is Defense Against the Dark Arts which is a difficult subject because of the material we are covering. Last week we did dementors, this week we are reviewing boggarts to give us a break from trying to produce our Patronus, with how depressed the castle has been lately no one has succeeded yet not even the Marauders and Lily. So class was pretty eventful a few people got to talk about their experiences with a boggart and we mostly just goofed off. We all had free period after lunch and we usually all hung out together pretending to study, but some days we went and did odd things by ourselves. Today we did the latter, Prongs goes and does quidditch related things since he is captain, Moony studies always he is weird like that, Lily-deer either joins her girlfriends or practices for different classes like Transfiguration or DADA, Peter (Wormy) goes to the kitchen even though we just ate, and I just wander around the castle or go and snog a random girl in a broom cupboard. Today I was wandering.

I was up on the third floor when I heard crying. I don't usually deal with crying that is Prongs, Moony and Lils area of expertise not mine, so I was going to continue walking when I heard the person crying desperately trying to banish a boggart. Still I continued walking I figured the person would figure it out by themselves till I recognized the voice and it chilled me to the core. It was Lily. Crap! So I turned around and hurried into the room. The sight I saw had me frozen to the spot, Lily was kneeling on the ground and there was an attractive blond girl maybe a few years older than herself looking at the ceiling with cold dead eyes. Lily was sobbing

"No, not Tuney, No! Riddikulus"

POP! Next there was a bloodied Alice Prewitt, Lily's best girlfriend,

"NO! R-R-Riddikulus"

POP! Poor little Wormy was lying there looking broken; Lily let out a pained moan

"riddikulus"

Her spell was getting weaker and weaker as the boggart kept changing. POP! Moony was lying there he looked as if he had been ripped to shreds by another animal, Lily was gasping for air next to him her face tear stained

"r-r-riddikulus"

She sounded as if her world was crumbling around her and it got me into motion I ran to her

"Lily" I said quietly.

POP! The boggart had shifted again I was looking down at myself with glassy eyes and blood running out of the corner of my mouth, blood and dirt was matted in my once gorgeous hair. It was a terrifying sight let me tell you. Next to me Lily let out a strangled sound that sounded like a half moan, half sob it was a heart wrenching sound.

"riddikulus" she whispered.

POP! I almost forgot this was a boggart at the sight before me James was lying there gasping for breath and moaning for me and Lily to help him, save him put him out of his misery. Lily was beyond tears and sobbing she looked like she was losing her grip on reality seeing James like that. I stood up, pointed my wand at the boggart and said "Riddikulus" loud and clear. The boggart disappeared with a last loud pop and I looked at Lily.

"I'm sorry" she whispered "I knew I needed practice and thought I could handle it."

"Don't be sorry" I replied "it's okay that you aren't perfect. You should have asked for help, or for someone to be here so it didn't get so far out of hand. Okay?" She looked up at me and gave me a small watery smile

"Thank you." She said softly.

"Anytime Lily I am always here for you, and we will all protect each other."

I said smiling at her. I held out my hand and she took it. We both headed for the door and silently agreed to find the others and go to the kitchens to have some hot chocolate. I found James, Remus, Peter, and Alice and told them what happened and we headed to the kitchens. When we got there the house elves told us that Lily had gotten hot chocolate for all of us then headed to the heads dorms. We ran as fast as we could up to the heads dorms, when we got there we saw Lily curled into the tiniest ball humanly possible sleeping. We could all tell she had been crying recently, so James walked over picked her up and set in her lap all of us seated around the two of them waiting for her to wake up. When she did she jumped about a mile high and then smiled at us all weakly then proceeded to try and make jokes about what had happened but failed miserably and passed the joking on to me. We all sat there joking and drinking hot chocolate forgetting for a moment about the weight on all of our shoulders and just enjoying the company. Maybe today wasn't so bad after all.


End file.
